The present invention relates generally to the enhancement of e-mail user interfaces and message formats, and more specifically to providing a dynamic preview window for viewing summaries of e-mail messages and attachments without having to open the e-mail message
E-mail is a very heavily used computer application program, and the number and size of e-mails are increasing every day. Recipients frequently must spend hours reading and responding to emails. Much of the increase in size is due to e-mail attachments. Because it is relatively easy to do, senders may add pictures, documents, and even video attachments to e-mails. E-mail recipients are frequently forced to guess the content of an e-mail from the subject line, and they are only notified of the present an attachment by a “paper clip” icon or the like. The user must usually open the e-mail to see its full content and to reply to the e-mail, as well as to determine the types and file names of any attachments. It is also necessary to open the e-mail in order to access the attachments, even though there may be no interest in the e-mail content itself. This requires invoking another application for each different type of attachment, and is very time consuming.
Standalone e-mail clients, such as Microsoft Outlook, have a static preview window or “reading pane” 112, as shown in FIG. 1b, that allows users to view portions of messages without having to open a new window for a selected message. Unfortunately, this reading pane suffers from several shortcomings. Firstly, it is a separate window that takes up a large amount of space on the display screen, which limits the amount of space available to list e-mails in the inbox view listing 111 of e-mails. Secondly, the reading pane is an operational mode of the Outlook e-mail application that is either turned on or off. It is not selectively activated for individual e-mails. Microsoft Outlook also has an “auto-preview” operating mode, where the entries for the e-mails in the inbox listing are expanded to show the first three lines of each e-mail in addition to the From and Subject lines. These lines take up a fixed amount of space in the inbox and the expanded entries reduce the number of e-mails visible in the inbox view. Auto-preview also does not allow access to attachments.
Common web-based e-mail systems normally only contain a static page listing of e-mails, and users have to click on the e-mail links to open the e-mail to retrieve the contents and any attachments. Certain enhanced web-based e-mail systems, such as OddPost and Microsoft's Web-based Outlook, may have static preview windows similar to that offered by the standalone clients. However, they also suffer from the drawback that these preview windows take up a large amount of space on the screen, and still require the e-mail and an appropriate application to be opened to access an attachment.
It is desirable to provide systems and methods that address the foregoing and other problems associated with e-mails by affording efficient mechanisms for quickly and efficiently previewing and responding to e-mails and attachments without cluttering the listing of the e-mails in a recipients' e-mail inbox and without requiring that e-mails be opened to interact with them. It is to these ends that the present invention is directed.